JCDecaux wins a new contract to provide automated public toilets in Paris and will supply the French capital with the most innovative, efficient and high-capacity facilities in the public space of any city in the world

JCDecaux SA (Euronext Paris: DEC), the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, announced that its subsidiary JCDecaux France has been selected by the City of Paris, to supply and operate its new automatic public toilet service, replacing the current facilities that are also operated by JCDecaux. The new contract was awarded following a competitive tender process that began in August 2020.

A new generation of public toilet facilities will be designed and assembled in France and will significantly increase access to the service in Paris

435 new-generation automatic toilets will be rolled out between 2024 and the beginning of 2025, replacing the existing facilities installed in 2009. Designed by JCDecaux design studio, the new toilets will be assembled in Les Yvelines (France) at our manufacturing centre in Maurepas by the company’s in-house teams.

These new facilities will help make daily life easier for residents and visitors to the city, benefitting men and women, children, senior citizens, people with disabilities as well as people experiencing homelessness. Universal access to hygiene services in the public domain is a fundamental human right while the pandemic underlined the inclusive and universal dimension of automated public toilets.

To design the new facilities and to take into account the opinions of users and non-users, JCDecaux’s teams met members of the public in a series of consultations held over a two-year period, including associations representing women, people with disabilities, people who are visually or hearing impaired as well as other key stakeholders. A major in-the-field study was also carried out.

In addition to providing a spacious cabin that enables universal access, the new street furniture facilities will also be equipped with a second urinal cabin, complete with a door and roof to ensure user privacy.

The waiting time between each visit to the main cabin will be reduced by a third, with the time between a customer leaving the toilet and it being available for the next customer reduced to just 30 seconds. During this time, the toilet cabin will be cleaned and disinfected for the comfort of the next user. The urinal cabin will be disinfected immediately after each user visit and available immediately with no waiting time.

As a result, the capacity of the automatic public toilets in the capital will be doubled to accommodate 870 users simultaneously, while the availability of the service will be multiplied by four, making it the largest network of public toilets in any city worldwide.

A project to promote public hygiene sustainably

To ensure the highest standards of hygiene, all customer interfaces will be operated hands-free. The external fountain and wash-hand sink will include a detergent dispenser, enabling all users to wash their hands when they are in the public space. The toilet bowl will be washed and disinfected after each use, while an innovative cleaning process will use water economically to fully clean and remove any rubbish left on the floor. The robust design and ergonomics of the public toilets have been optimised to deter vandalism or any anti-social behaviour, to keep the toilets operating and clean, and to guarantee a rate of service in excess of 98% for the fleet.

Designed to be environmentally-friendly, the toilets will be serviced by operatives using cargo bikes, ensuring there is no impact on traffic congestion. Repairs requiring spare parts will be carried out by operatives driving electric vehicles. The toilets will be particularly sustainable as water consumption will be cut by almost 2/3 and electricity consumption by 1/3 compared to the current position. The toilets will also be powered by 100% renewable electricity and the contribution to collective carbon neutrality will cover all of their activities.

In line with JCDecaux’s long-standing commitment to the circular economy, the current toilets which will be replaced, will be refurbished by the company’s teams and redeployed to other markets in France or internationally.

Design that respects the heritage of Paris

Patrick Jouin, who also designed the capital’s existing fleet of public toilets was tasked with creating the aesthetics of the new toilets. The silhouette of the new toilets will be in line with the existing model, enabling the easy identification of the service by the public and seamlessly integrating into the Parisian cityscape: providing an elegant, sleek and timeless aesthetic with this subtle redesign. Particular care was taken with the roof to provide a pleasant outlook for the surrounding buildings. The footprint of the toilets has been fully optimised to enhance the public space. The same height and width as the current fleet, the new model will be only slightly longer despite the addition of the urinal cabin. The new design of these public toilets will be unveiled in the third quarter of 2022.

New capabilities of the service

A free-of-charge app will enable users to check the availability of facilities in their area, the shortest route to reach them and other useful information. This will also allow the public to report any vandalism or maintenance requests in real time so JCDecaux’s teams can respond as quickly as possible.

To keep up with the changing levels of demand for public toilets, there is the flexibility for the city to order between 50 and 100 additional units of a more compact toilet model which could be introduced to other more restricted sites which currently do not have toilet facilities. These models would be equipped with a compact main cabin and a urinal.

For over 40 years, JCDecaux has continuously created new products and services that benefit the public space. Thanks to this innovation, our toilets offer ever greater hygiene, comfort, simplicity and access for users than ever before. Backed by its unique expertise as an innovator, designer and operator, JCDecaux currently manages the world’s leading network of automatic public toilets, with 31 million users per year, in constant progression.

Jean-Charles Decaux, Chairman of the Executive Board and Co-CEO of JCDecaux, said: “With our focus on continual innovation and service, JCDecaux’s teams strive to sustainably improve the quality of life in cities for everyone. Access to public toilets is not only essential for hygiene and human dignity it is a public service of the highest order. As the creator of the self-cleaning toilet in 1981, we were the first in the world to offer public toilets that were accessible to women in the public space. Today, our toilets in Paris serve more than 15 million men and women each year. Installed in 2009, they clearly illustrate JCDecaux’s commitment to the fight against planned obsolescence and are part of an environmental approach to deliver street furniture that stands the test of time - thanks to our robust management of resources that creates products that are designed and maintained to last. Our new Parisian public toilets will be designed with this same objective in mind. This initiative is the result of four years of development by our teams whose expertise in the design and operation of self-cleaning public toilets will once again provide Paris with the most innovative and greatest capacity fleet in the world, as we did forty years ago.”